Home Health & Hospice Week

Home health agencies are getting no favors from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's March report to Congress. As agreed upon in its January meeting, MedPAC recommends that Congress eliminate the market basket inflation update for 2011 for home health agencies and rebase rates (see Eli's HCW, Vol. XIX, No. 4, p. 26). That would strip more than $10 billion from Medicare HHA spending over five years, the report says. MedPAC also wants prospective payment system changes to combat possible care stinting; outcome measures by patient category; and enhanced fraud-fighting measures such as moratoriums and prompt pay rule suspensions. And the Commission resurrects an old budget standby -- a home health visit copayment. On the hospice side: The number of hospice providers grew 47 percent from 2000 to 2008, mostly in the non-profit sector, MedPAC says in the report. The Commission recommends that Congress reduce hospice payments by a "productivity" adjustment in [...]